As part of today’s Zen 3 desktop CPU announcement from AMD, the company also threw in a quick teaser from the GPU side of the company in order to show off the combined power of their CPUs and GPUs. The other half of AMD is preparing for their own announcement in a few weeks, where they’ll be holding a keynote for their forthcoming Radeon RX 6000 video cards.

With the recent launch of NVIDIA’s Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series parts clearly on their minds, AMD briefly teased the performance of a forthcoming high-end RX 6000 video card. The company isn’t disclosing any specification details of the unnamed card – short of course that it’s an RDNA2-based RX 6000 part – but the company did disclose a few choice benchmark numbers from their labs.

Dialing things up to 4K at maximum quality, AMD benchmarked Borderlands 3, Gears of War 5, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019). And while these are unverified results being released for marketing purposes – meaning they should be taken with a grain or two of salt – the implied message from AMD is clear: they’re aiming for NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3080 with this part.

Assuming these numbers are accurate, AMD’s Borderlands 3 performance are practically in lockstep with the 3080. However the Gears 5 results are a bit more modest, and 73fps would have AMD trailing by several percent. Finally, Call of Duty does not have a standardized benchmark, so although 88fps at 4K looks impressive, it’s impossible to say how it compares to other hardware.

Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that as with all vendor performance teases, we’re likely looking at AMD’s best numbers. And of course, expect to see a lot of ongoing fine tuning from both AMD and NVIDIA over the coming weeks and months as they jostle for position, especially if AMD’s card is consistently this close.

Otherwise, the biggest question that remains for another day is which video card these performance numbers are for. It’s a very safe bet that this is AMD’s flagship GPU (expected to be "Big Navi", Navi 21), however AMD is purposely making it unclear if this is their lead configuration, or their second-tier configuration. Reaching parity with the 3080 would be a big deal on its own; however if it’s AMD’s second tier-card, then that would significantly alter the competitive landscape.

Expect to find out the answers to this and more on October 28th, when AMD hosts their Radeon RX 6000 keynote.

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  • omi-kun - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link

    If they come in close in perf but cheaper and use less power, that will be a huge win.
  • zamroni - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link

    I guess 3070 is $499 because of 2080ti-equivalent xsx is $499 then 3080 is $699 because it needs to maintain similar price/performance ratio to 3070
  • Spunjji - Friday, October 9, 2020 - link

    No they don't. 🤷‍♂️ Feel free to keep moving those goalposts on "perceived quality" while the rest of us buy the products that provide the best balance of price, performance, and power consumption.
  • Sttm - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link

    I think AMD has to deliver more performance to offset DLSS 2.0 (which works well and is coming to more and more games). Without a DLSS alternative, without higher overall performance, I don't see it competing.

    They'd have to seriously undercut pricing. $499 would be ideal.
  • Kutark - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link

    I disagree, even a $50 price deficit, combine that with it having 16gb of VRAM and they would absolutely trounce the 3080 in the market. That has value written alll over it.
  • ArcadeEngineer - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link

    Even when they are competitive AMD have trouble trouncing anything. Even 580 and 570, their most popular recent cards peaked, at about a fifth of the value for 1060s in the steam hardware survey.
  • Spunjji - Friday, October 9, 2020 - link

    Yup. It's almost like a sustained viral marketing campaign by Nvidia to label AMD cards as slow and buggy has had some sort of cumulative effect on purchasing habits.
  • flyingpants265 - Friday, October 9, 2020 - link

    Look at the AMD subreddit, hundreds upon hundreds of reports of 'black screen' and other problems with 5700XT and other AMD cards. And of course, the manufacturer won't honor the warranty. Spending an extra $100 to get a 2070S to get proper reliability & support is no big deal for people who have a bit of money.
  • TheinsanegamerN - Saturday, October 10, 2020 - link

    "viral marketing campaign"

    You mean the longstanding complaints from AMD users that AMD's GPU drivers have been poorly coded scrap for a decade? The NAVI users complaining about performance issues were all paid Nvidia shills now?
  • Qasar - Saturday, October 10, 2020 - link

    the funny thing is, for every 1 person that says amds gpu drivers suck, there is the same that say nvidia's drivers are just as as bad. i have had issues with both over the years. each side has had their own issues. NONE of them are perfect.

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